I read my scene just fine last night! No vomiting, no sudden 32-year-old death syndrome. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had nothing to be nervous about. It makes nothing but pure, unadulterated SENSE that I'd be the one in my writing class to break the sex scene cherry. It went over well. My teacher's written comment was: "good sex scene" and given how ridonculously impossible it is to write a realistic sex scene devoid of animal-themed metaphors and giant gravity-defying breasts, I'll take whatever chump change I can get.
The more interesting part was the critique. I really enjoy getting feedback on the novel and seem to be taking the criticism far better than I expected I would. The class is extra helpful because we've all just gone through five weeks of topical lectures on exactly what makes a good novel and that improves the quality of criticism by several hundred percent.
But here's the clincher: my protagonist's biggest life conflict is the fact that she wants a second child and her husband doesn't. The reasons WHY are what fill up the book, but I chose this as the top-layer conflict because it's such a common theme among my mom-friends, myself included - the debate over exactly what is the right number of kids. But I looked around the room last night, which was admittedly barren, several people having gone AWOL for the class this week, and realized I was the only person present who had ever experienced the mind-bending torture of childbirth.
Not EXACTLY my target market for the book.
But the feedback was still helpful and I spent the wee hours of the night making revisions. I have two great long-distance friends editing the novel as well and their input has been equally invaluable (especially so because they are SPECIFICALLY my target market) and neither of them flinched at the things that were brought up in class. Apparently the parallels between gestating a novel and gestating a child are not at all dissimilar, both apparently prone to assvice that is chock full of contradiction.
Anyway, I got a nice constructive e-mail from the instructor this afternoon that totally made up for the fact that I ALSO received an e-mail from the community center saying my "Blogging for Beginners" class had been canceled because not enough people had signed up for it. And by "not enough people" I mean ONE. ONE PERSON had signed up for the class I was planning to teach next Thursday. And even though the class only cost $15 for two two-hour sessions, I'm going to blame The Economy because why not? Everyone else is doing it. The good news is this isn't the first time my procrastination has turned out to save me a butt-ton of unnecessary work. I hadn't so much as prepared an OUTLINE for next week's class, much less spent any time actually thinking about what I was going to cover. Laziness FTW!
I would have taken your blogging class! If I was, you know, 800 miles closer.
Posted by: Laura (not the usual one that comments here) | February 19, 2009 at 05:22 AM
I saw that advertised and wondered if you were going to be the teacher. If it weren't for the full-time school, part-time work and general craziness of life, I totally would have taken it.
Posted by: Sara | February 19, 2009 at 07:51 AM
The novel writing sounds very interesting. I have always wanted to write something. You are brave to giving it a shot. Reading your work to others? Jeez, just the thought of it made me cringe and be all "Well, I'll never take a writing class if that's what you have to do!"
Anyway, I also wanted to say I get a kick out of some of the stories in Dave's News Reel. Does he control the content over there?
Posted by: Deb | February 19, 2009 at 08:02 AM
SO glad you cleared up the "FTW." I was too embarassed to ask what it meant. I was guessing
"f#%k the world." I'm glad that's not what it meant! harsh.
Posted by: tonya | February 19, 2009 at 09:34 AM
OMG i thought it meant "FTW" also !!!!
i so want to take a blogging class here because of your blog!! i will have to see if our local college offers it(i hope)!
anyways as for the part about the "RIGHT" # of kids, i was soooooooo happy with my 2 a girl & boy, needless to say i have 4 days until my 3rd baby arrives and all i keep hearing is 3 puts you over the edge :) i hope not :)
Posted by: laura | February 19, 2009 at 10:47 AM
I'd blame the economy too. There are plenty of people interested in blogging, after all =)
The how-many-to-have is a constant debate amongst our circles too. It seems like the question to which there is just never a right and perfect answer.
Posted by: Sarah | February 19, 2009 at 07:16 PM